The highly-anticipated “Ghostbusters” reboot has been denied a release in the world’s most populous nation, due in part to the country’s obscure censorship laws.
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The country has some very unusual and obscure laws about depicting the supernatural in movies which has led to several films being banned in the past, and Sony took steps to try to ensure they dodged that bullet by re-titling the picture 超能敢死队, which translates to “Super Power Dare Die Team”.
China’s Communist Party has a problem with ghosts, which is bad news for Sony Pictures Entertainment’s $154 million “Ghostbusters”. So the fact that films that promote “cults or superstitious beliefs” get rejected by the state film board is going to be a problem for Ghostbusters. The film even changed its Chinese title to remove the word “ghost”.
Deadline said the studio was not planning to submit the Ghostbusters reboot to China’s cultural authorities until the coming week.
The original Bill Murray-starring 1984 classic, which never screened theatrically in China, was translated as “捉鬼敢死队”, five characters literally meaning “Ghost Catcher Dare Die Team”.
The world’s most populous country won’t be getting a release of the new Ghostbusters movie, THR reported today. While comedies tend to perform worse overseas, “Ghostbusters” has a strong genre element that could serve the film well in territories outside North America, like China.
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Ghostbusters, directed by Paul Feig and starring Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Leslie Jones and Kate McKinnon, opening on July 15th in the United States, is expected to face a hard opening weekend, with a projected $50 million take off a $144 million budget.
